The following was a copy of a letter sent to a few people the last of whom was Dana X. It is self explanatory. Please enjoy.
Dear Dana ,
Thank your for your nice words after my sending the Goitse video to you. I have noted your kinds words and the observation re. my writing a book. Well thank you, but no thank you. The reasons:
1) I have trouble keeping up blog postings of a few words per month. The discipline of writing a book... O.M.G. !
2) There are some unhappy times in my life I don´t want to ´go back to´.
NOT awful, but growing up/finding one´s way stuff. That was hard and really what is there to share on that? Most everyone have ´been there, done that´ in some uncomfortable-to-awful way or other. Nothing new to talk of there, even if I wanted to!
3) The truth. I would have to tell the truth. HOW AWFUL IS THAT! I have absolutely no desire to share my whole life with the world.
So instead, I will just sent you a newsy e-mail.
After our adventure driving to Spain in June, all has been quite for us on Lake Konstanz. Not too wild, but very pleasant, there were parties and friends, and family visits. All wonderful, below is a taste of the more unusual.
As you know I work in a school, so I had most of the summer off. It was lovely here when the sun was shining. Which it did most of the time. - Well apart from about three weeks bad weather the end of July/beginning of August. There were a lot of cycle trips, walking about and of course swimming and not doing much at all. The latter of which I am quite good at!
A family friend came for a week of cycling and leisure on the Bodensee. A good story there: Yasmin X is coming to retirement age. Like many in her demographic the world over, she has worked hard all her life, and now at 60 plus is aware she is not sure what she wants to do with the gift of time afforded to her in the near future D.V. So, she is experimenting. In this spirit, she contacted me to see if I could accompany her on a cycle trip on Lake Konstanz, she wants to see if she would like to take up cycling. While not exactly a breeze for her, cycling was fun enough for her to consider ´more of the same´. A nice addendum there: Her daughter and her daughter´s friend thought so much of this adventure, that they joined us for a few days. Some photos en route.
Another fun thing we did was visit a farm museum, to see how farming was carried out in the 1700 and 1800´s. – It was a hard life here too in those times!
https://freilichtmuseum-neuhausen.de/
A highlight was a visit and going out for a walk - with the pigs. See photo below with us, other visitors, a pig herder and lots of very self-confident pigs. Which I understand pigs are. It was indeed fun.
A note on the pig herder, the red haired women with the bucket; he started as a housekeeper in the museum over 25 years ago. They noted that she had a great talent with pigs! Since then, she has been managing the herd of about 12 young pigs that arrive every spring. I´ve always said it Dana when people see how competent one keeps a house, it can lead to all sorts of options, this is particularly true in the U.S. - One of the many wonderful things about that country. None the less from housekeeper to pig herder is a first for me!
Yesterday I had another adventure of a different sort. I visited a monastery here that honours an Irish man, St. Fintán. – Seems there are several Irish saints in the old church called Fintán. See link below. The church was even more ornate than Birnau, where Herbert and I married. And even more out in the boondocks. A lovely walk in the wilds which I enjoyed with a woman here who is well up on ´holy places´ and such things. Alas it was too wet to take good pictures, so you check it out yourself. https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fintan_von_Rheinau
You might enjoy my little Birds custard trifle story. A German woman here, a friend and an anglophile, was horrified that I had never made this dessert, for my German husband.
Well I made one for Romeo H. during the summer, and the proof of the pudding in this instance, is in the picture.
But it was a good trifle too it was if I say so myself.
And finally, a picture of me at Oktober Fest in Konstanz.
It is only going in Konstanz for about five years now, from about Sept. 15th to Oct. 3rd. I am the only person in my world here who likes Oktober Fest. So one of the week days after work, I headed straight in on the train and enjoyed a few hours of ´oomph pa pa´music. It was fun. – The Maß of beer was just for show, I hasten to add!
Well now Dana, is this not a newsy up date or what! I enjoyed writing it and thinking back on all the fun things I have enjoyed and more to come. D.V. Much to be grateful for. And I am.
So Dana, this is not a book, but it is some updates on life and times here. In fact, I will make a blog posting out of it, in your honour!
Regards,
Hausfrau Róisín.
P.S. in Sept. 2009, on the night before our church wedding here in Allensbach, when coming back from and evening meal in Allensbach on Sept. 18th, we saw ´something´ in the sky, which we filmed. We later found out it was the NASA world viewer.
See link to same not from 18th 2009 however!. : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NxRUpzM6JTg
